The Seafarers
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But, of course, Gilbert could tell them no more than he had already done a dozen times, while repeating in substance all that he had said to his fiancée.
'I am sorry,' he had said on each occasion, and again said now, 'but I know absolutely nothing. I was insensible when I was taken into the dhow-as taken in I must have been, since I could never have got in by myself-and, as you are well aware, I was insensible when I was brought out. I positively know nothing.'
'The helmsman's death was as strange as anything,' Pooley observed. 'Fagg says there was no wound about him that he could see. What, therefore, could he have died of?'
'Sunstroke, I imagine,' the first mate said, in his usual emphatic, crisp manner. 'Sunstroke. It could not have been fever, otherwise these negroes would have it, too. Yet,' he went on, in a manner more meditative than usual with him, 'those Arabs, if he was an Arab, rarely suffer from that. It takes a white man to get sunstroke.'
'Well, come,' said the master again, 'let's go and see to them. The sun is on the horizon; it will be dark in a quarter of an hour's time.' Whereon he strode forward, accompanied by Charke, while Mr. Fagg, who had come up from the saloon, began to keep such watch as was necessary. And Gilbert, bidding Bella go and sit with Mrs. Pooley, strode after them, since he was anxious to have a look at the unhappy creatures who had been rescued at the same time as himself.
The male blacks had been put into a deck cabin (in which was usually kept an assortment of things such as spare lamps, a boat sail or two, and Mr. Fagg's bicycle, on which he disported himself whenever he got ashore anywhere), wherein some matting had been thrown down for their accommodation. And, as now they neared this cabin, they heard sounds proceeding from within it which were really moans, but, to their ears, had more the semblance of the bleating of sheep. Also, it seemed as if one of them within was chanting some sort of song or incantation.
'We shall have to stop this noise in some way, sir,' Charke said to the captain; 'it has been going on more or less ever since they came on board, and the men complain that it disturbs them in the fo'c's'le. It's a pity we can't communicate with them somehow. Perhaps Lieutenant Bampfyld might try, as he says he knows some words of Swahili'; while as he spoke he looked at the man who had once more, as he considered, or chose to consider, stepped in between him and the woman he loved. Yet, because he never forgot that he was a gentleman born, there was nothing in his manner that was otherwise than polite when he addressed Gilbert.
'I have tried,' said the latter, 'more than once to-day. And either my Swahili is defective, or that is not their language. I suspect that it's Galla, of which I do not know a word.'
Meanwhile, the captain had drawn back the cocoanut matting which hung in front of the deck cabin door, though, after peering into the sombre dusk for a moment, he started back, exclaiming: 'Good Heavens! what has happened now? Have they murdered one of their companions, or what?'
It was, in truth, a weird sort of scene on which he, as well as Gilbert and Charke, gazed, as the swiftly-failing tropical evening light illumined the interior of the cabin. Flat on the floor of it lay one of the negroes, undoubtedly dead, since there was on his face the gray, slate-coloured hue which the African assumes in death. Yet his eyes were open, only now, instead of that bright glassy look which all their eyes had had since they were brought on board, there was a dull filmy look, which told plainly enough that there was no life behind them. Still, dead as the man undoubtedly was, he did not present the most uncanny spectacle of all within! That was furnished by those who of late had been his comrades, and by the strange grotesqueness-a grotesqueness that was horrible in itself-of their actions. All three of the living negroes were on their knees in the cabin, which was roomy enough to amply admit of their being so, while, with their great black hands, they were pawing the man all over, feeling his breast and body, and endeavouring to bend his fingers and toes as well as his legs and arms; while, even as they did so, from their great mouths came that moaning incantation which resembled so much the bleating of sheep. Doubtless they felt almost sure that their fellow-slave was dead, and these actions were being performed as tests. Yet, also, there was a solemn, wild unearthliness attached to the whole thing by the manner in which, when one of the visitors standing at the door and peering in made a remark, all turned their sightless eyes towards that door and then held up each a hand, and emitted a hissing noise through their great pendulous lips, as though enjoining silence and respect for the dead. They held up those hands with the fingers stretched enormously apart and with the palms towards the intruders. Their eyes were bright enough as they glared at the three white men outside, whom they could not see, yet, somehow, the gleam in them and the knowledge that they were sightless gave so creepy a feeling to those regarding them that they could not restrain a shudder.
'What in God's name is it?' exclaimed Pooley, he being the first to speak. 'What? What horrible disease that blinds them to commence with, and then kills-and kills not only negro, but Arab-captured and captor? Who-which-will be the next?'
As he spoke, a thought struck each of the three as they stood there gazing at one another in the swiftly-arrived darkness of the tropical night-a thought to which, however, not one of them gave utterance. Who would be the next? An Arab had died from some strange, unknown disease in the ship wherein these men had been found, and, now, one of them, too-a negro! Had, they reflected, this insidious horror been, therefore, brought into a ship full of white men? Would they also fall victims to that which had killed the others? That was the thought in their minds-in the minds of all of them, though not one gave voice to that thought.
'He must be got away from them-taken out of that cabin,' Pooley said, his speech a little changed now, and more husky and less clear than usual. 'Perhaps the woman, the negress, may be of some avail. I doubt if they will let us remove him without difficulty-though-poor blind things as they are-they could scarcely make any resistance. Go across to the other cabin, Mr. Charke, and fetch her over.'
He had been anticipated in his order, however, by the chief mate ere he spoke, Charke having, through some idea of his own, already crossed the deck to the opposite cabin in which the woman was placed. Therefore, as Pooley looked round to see why the mate did not answer him, he saw in the darkness that he was returning; while he perceived-even in this darkness, which was not quite all darkness yet, and by the light of the foredeck lantern-that Charke looked pale and agitated.
'The woman,' he said, 'is dead, too, I believe. She is lying on the cabin floor motionless-and cold.'
CHAPTER XII
'STRICKEN'
It was from this time that there began to creep over the ship a feeling shared by all, both fore and aft, that the voyage would not end without something untoward happening. What form, however, any misfortune which might come to them would be likely to take, none were bold enough to attempt to prophesy. Yet, all the same, the feeling was there, and, since every man on board the ship was a sailor, while, for the ladies, one was a sailor's wife and the other a sailor's future wife (each of whom was certain to be strongly receptive of the ideas and superstitions of her own particular sailor), it was not very strange that such should be the case. And, there was also in the thoughts of all that idea to which none of the men congregated outside the cabin, when the negro had been found dead, had ventured to give expression-the idea that the unknown, insidious disease-which had struck him and the negress, and also, possibly, the Arab Negoda down-might eventually seize on them. There were, however, at present at least, no symptoms of anything of the kind happening. All on board continued well enough, and, up to the time that the man and woman had both been buried in the sea for more than twenty-four hours, no complaints were heard from any one of feeling at all unwell, while the three remaining blacks seemed no worse than before.
Yet, it was a pity, perhaps, that at this time the ship should still have been forced to remain becalmed and almost motionless; that neither from south nor west any breeze blew-from the north and cast there was scarcely a possibility of wind at this season-and that, except for the strong southern current which carried her along at a considerable though almost imperceptible rate, she hardly stirred at all. A pity, because it gave the sailors too many idle watches wherein to talk and chatter, to spin yarns of old-time horrors which had fallen upon vessels in different parts of the world, and to relate strange visitations which they had either personally suffered under or had 'heerd tell on,' and so forth.
Nor aft, in the saloon, did those who used it fail to discuss the strange circumstance of-not so much the death which had stricken the Africans-as the blindness that had fallen upon them. And here, Stephen Charke, better read perhaps than any of the others owing to his studious nature, was able to discuss the matter more freely than either the captain or those who sat at his table.
'I do distinctly recollect reading somewhere,' the mate said one evening, as all sat under the great after-deck awning, fanning themselves listlessly, while Fagg worked a kind of punkah which his ingenuity had devised, 'I do distinctly recollect reading somewhere of all those in a ship, on board of which was a large cargo of West African negroes bound for America, being stricken with blindness. I wish I could recall where I read it. In that way we might be able, also, to find out how to take some steps to avoid the same thing happening to us in the old Emperor.'
'A cheerful prospect, truly,' said the captain, 'if that is to occur'; and as he spoke he roamed his eye around the tranquil, glassy sea, on which there was not so much as a ripple. 'A pleasant thing, indeed, if one-half of us get blind and a rough time comes on. How, then, is the ship to be worked three thousand miles. How are the sails to be attended to?' and now he directed his eyes aloft to where all the canvas was neatly furled with the exception of the studding sails.
'We'll hope it won't be as bad as that, sir,' said Fagg. 'Only the black people, and those out of another ship than ours, seem to suffer. Until one of us,'-by which he meant the Europeans on board-'gets affected we haven't much to fear, I take it. While, you know, sir, we can find shelter before we reach Bombay. There are the Seychelles, for instance, from which we are not so very far off.'
'Such a delay as that would mean a very serious loss for me,' Pooley replied. 'As it is, I expect, one way or another, I shall miss one voyage out of two years.'
'I hope not,' said Gilbert Bampfyld, seriously, 'otherwise I shall begin to think it was a pity you ever came in contact with the dhow in which you found me.'
Yet, as he spoke, he saw Bella's beautiful eyes fixed on his face, and knew that no more crowning mercy had ever been vouchsafed to any two mortals than had been accorded to his sweetheart and himself by his rescue.
'Well,' said Pooley, 'we won't talk about that. I am devoutly thankful that we were enabled, by God's mercy, and also by the aid of something which is almost a miracle, to rescue you. For the rest a sailor must take all that comes in his way and never repine. The Emperor has been a good old tank to me; pray Heaven she continues so to the end.' Then he suddenly stopped and peered forward under the awning towards the forecastle, where, beneath another awning, the sailors had been lying about, some sleeping, some chatting idly, and most of them-even to those who had dropped off-with a pipe between their lips.
'What's that commotion forward?' he asked, addressing himself to Charke, who, ever on the qui vive as became a chief officer, had sprung to his feet and was gazing keenly towards the foredeck. 'What's the matter with the men, and why are those three holding Wilks up like that?'
'Forward there!' sang out Charke in a voice like a trumpet, as he, too, saw that which the master had described, namely, three of the hands standing up round the man named Wilks, and one grasping him on either side, while he himself pushed his arms out before him in a manner that implied a sort of doubting helplessness on his part. 'Forward there! What's the matter with that man?'
'He says he can't see, sir,' roared back another man on the forecastle deck, pulling his hair to Charke as he spoke. 'He was asleep just now; and then, when he woke up, he asked what time o'night it was because it was so dark.'
'My God!' exclaimed Pooley, while the faces of all around him took on a blanched, terrified look, and Bella, with the beautiful carnation of her lips almost white now, grasped her lover's arm. 'My God!' Then he turned to Fagg and muttered, repeating the other's words: '"Not much to fear until one of us gets affected." Heavens! we haven't had long to wait!'
While, following Charke who had already gone forward, and followed by Fagg, he went towards the forecastle.
His mates were bringing Wilks down the ladder now, since Charke sang out that he should be taken into the comparative darkness of their quarters at once, thereby to escape the glare of the sun; and not one of those who were eagerly watching his descent but observed how like his actions were to the actions of the blind negroes when they were brought off from the dhow, and the actions of the others to the behaviour of the men who had assisted them to come on board. For his companions directed his hands to the ladder's ropes even as the blacks, hands had been directed; while in each of his motions was the same hesitation, followed by the same careful grasping of the rail, as there had been in the motions of the slaves.
'Oh, Gilbert,' Bella exclaimed piteously, as she clung to him, 'what is going to happen? What is hanging over us? Supposing-supposing-'
'What, darling?'
'That-oh, I don't dare to say what I dread. But if this terrible thing should spread all through the ship. If uncle, if you, if all the sailors were attacked. And you-you-dearest; you, my darling.'
'Let us hope it will not come to that. Besides I, personally, matter the least of any-'
'Bertie!' she almost shrieked, alarmed, 'when you know that those others-some of them at least-that those poor black creatures have died after it. And you say that you matter the least of any; you, whom I love so.'
'I meant as regards the ship. I am not one of her officers, nor concerned in the working of her; and Bella, dearest Bella, don't get those dreadful ideas into your pretty head. Never give way to panic in an emergency. Doubtless some more will find their eyesight leave them-temporarily-but it can scarcely be that all will be attacked. And as regards death following, why, those other niggers are all right, and they are just as blind as those who have died!'
It happened-as so often such things happen in this world-that he spoke a little too soon. He hit upon the denial of the likelihood of a possibility occurring which, by a strange decree of fate or chance, was, at the very moment of that denial, to occur; since, just as the repudiation of such probability was uttered by him, and before the men helping Wilks had had time to get him comfortably into his berth in the forecastle, there arose once more that strange, weird, moaning kind of incantation from the deck-cabin in which the remaining negroes were, that had been heard before by all. And, added to it, was something more than any had heretofore heard, namely, a series of wild turbulent shouts in the unknown barbaric tongue used by the Africans-shouts that seemed to issue alone from one of their throats. A noise, a bellowing, in which, though on board the Emperor of the Moon there was not one person who could understand the words that voice uttered, all recognised the tones that denote fear, terror, and misery extreme.
Instantly, so stridently horrible were those cries, every one of the Englishmen about rushed towards the cabin, Pooley and Charke being the first there, while Gilbert, running forward from the afterpart and along the waist, was soon by their sides.
And then, looking in, they saw that the poor blind, excited savage who was emitting those shouts had, in truth, sufficient reason for his frenzy. He seemed-he was, indeed-demented, as, with both his great hands, he felt all over the bodies of his comrades who were lying lifeless on the cabin deck, and presented an awful appearance to those who gazed on him as his great features worked in excitement, his vast mouth, with its adornment of huge white teeth, opened and shut like a wild beast's at bay, and his blind, but brilliant, eyes glared hideously. That he was nearly mad with fright and terror was easily apparent, since, while recognising without seeing that there were others near, he snarled and bit at the space in front of him, and struck out with his fists or clawed at the air with his enormous hands.
'He will spring out at us directly,' Charke said, drawing to one side of the cabin. 'The fellow is mad with fear or grief.' Then, ready in expedient as ever, he ran the cabin door out of its slide and shut in the negro with his dead companions. Nor did he do so too soon, since, a moment later, those without heard the huge form of the man leaping towards the door; once they heard him slip, as though he had trodden on the body or one of the limbs of those lying dead on the floor; and then there came a beating and hammering on that door which seemed to promise that, in a few seconds, the panels would be dashed out and the maddened black be among them.
'This is too awful,' muttered Pooley. 'Is he really gone mad, do you think?' he asked, appealing to Charke, Gilbert and Fagg at one and the same time.
'No doubt about it,' they answered together. 'No doubt. And if he once gets out to the deck, sir,' said Charke, 'a dozen of us will not be able to hold him.'
'We must capture him if he does. Better throw a rope round him somehow. If he were not blind, we should have to shoot him. Ha! see, he has smashed open the panel! Stand by there, some of you men, to catch him as he leaps out.'
While, even as he spoke, the gigantic madman, with another howl, broke down the door and sprang amongst them.
CHAPTER XIII
'SPARE HER! SPARE HER!'
Mrs. Pooley, Bella and Gilbert sat alone in the saloon that night, the faces of the two women being careworn and depressed in appearance, while on that of the young naval officer was a look, if not of consternation, at least of doubt and anxiety. That all of them should present this appearance of perturbation was natural enough, because by this time it was impossible to suppose that any less than a calamity was impending over the Emperor of the Moon and all in her. Two more men, named Burgess and Truby, had been attacked with blindness, while the negro, who had been the last survivor amongst the slaves, was himself now dead.
'It was too awful,' said Gilbert, who had come below to tell the ladies that which had happened above, since to keep silence on the subject was useless, in consequence of the turmoil in the ship which had accompanied the poor creature's last moments. 'He died a raving maniac-nothing short of that. You heard his howls and yells after we had got him safely tied up; we saw a sight that I, at least-and I should think everybody else-hope never to see again. Even roped as he was, his leaps and convulsions were something shocking. Thank God, they soon came to an end. I believe he died of the exhaustion caused by his mania.'
'What is to become of us all?' asked Mrs. Pooley sadly. 'What? The ship moves only by the current; my husband said just now that, if things go on and get worse, there will be none left to control her when the wind does come.'
'The trouble is,' said Gilbert, 'that, if they make sail when the wind springs up, there may be no men to take it in if that wind comes on too strong. And, at all events, it will be serious if more men are attacked. I have offered my services in any capacity if wanted, and will serve either as officer or man if Captain Pooley will let me.'
Bella threw an admiring glance at her lover in approval of what she, in her own mind, probably considered his noble disinterestedness; then she said:
'But surely all are not going to be attacked one after another in this way? And if so, uncle can't possibly think of trying to get to Bombay when the wind does come.'
'I have suggested the same thing to him that Fagg did this afternoon-namely, the Seychelles. They're all right, and the climate is first-rate for the tropics. He says, however, he will see what happens by the time we get a wind. He won't give in if no more men are attacked.'
Meanwhile, even as he spoke, each of the trio were occupied with thoughts which they would not have cared to put into language. Mrs. Pooley's were those good wifely reflections which busied themselves only with her husband's interests, and were disturbed by considerations of what a loss to him the delay would produce should it be further prolonged. Yet, there was also growing upon her, if it were not already full-grown-as was now the case with all others in the ship-a gruesome, indefinable horror of what might be the outcome of this strange affliction that had fallen on the vessel. Suppose, she had asked herself a hundred times in common with all the others on board-the sailors alone expressing their thoughts openly-suppose everyone in the Emperor succumbed to this blindness! What then would happen, even if it were not followed by death? Would they drift about the ocean helplessly if the calm continued, until they were seen and rescued by some other vessel; or, if a strong gale came up, would they-with no one capable of so much as steering the ship be shipwrecked and sent to the bottom? While, as to the horrible idea of death following on blindness, and the Emperor of the Moon drifting about, a floating catacomb-that was not to be thought about! It was too fearful a thing to reflect upon and still preserve one's sanity. Yet, all the same, not only was it thought about but talked about among the sailors, while many ideas were propounded as to what was to be done ere the worst came to the worst. As for Bella, her reflections were all of one kind, and one only. Would Gilbert be spared! For herself she cared but little, though she would scarcely have been the brave, womanly girl she was if she had not repined at the dark cloud which had now settled down over the existence of her lover and herself, and which threatened, if it continued to hover over them and their fortunes, to darken that existence still more. Further than this she did not dare to look, and, consequently, could only pray fervently that the cloud might be lifted ere long, even as she strove to force herself to believe that such would undoubtedly be the case.
Yet Gilbert's meditations were perhaps the most melancholy and bitter of any of the three persons now assembled in the saloon-brave, self-reliant young officer as he was, and full of hope and belief in many happy years still to come and to be passed in the possession of a beautiful and devoted wife, as well as in the service of a glorious profession. For he could not disguise from, nor put away from, his mind the recollection that, with his coming into this ship, with his rescue, there had come also that intangible, mysterious disease which was striking down those around him one by one at extremely short intervals; and, although he knew that he was no more responsible for its presence than if he had never been found in that accursed dhow, he began to think that there were many in the Emperor of the Moon who would regard him as being more or less so. Which, in truth, was a weak supposition, born in his usually strong, clear head by the calamities now happening with great frequency one after the other; a supposition shared by no one else in the ship. For-as he himself knew very well, yet took no comfort in knowing-had he not been in the dhow her other inhabitants would have been rescued all the same and taken off by Pooley, and would have brought on board with them the infection which was now supposed to be at the root of the disasters that were happening.